Experiments With Hope - Episode 33: 7 Days Raw Vegan

NOTE: This episode was recorded on February 11th, 2019 and moved from YouTube on January 23rd, 2021.

Over the past seven days, I experimented with a raw, 7-day vegan diet. Veganism isn't new to me. Just the raw part. Below is a picture of me after one year of eating non-raw vegan. I was 38 years old and still in better shape than I'd been at 19 when I was an athlete, martial artist, and a meat-eater. This time, I decided to try it raw for seven days and see what the difference was. In this podcast, I talk about what I learned about myself, and, more importantly, about the myths we tell ourselves about the Western Diet.

One very interesting observation is how brainwashed we are to accept the value of eating animal products. First off, you can get just as much protein (I'm talking on an ounce by ounce and/or calorie per calorie basis), from eating plant products as you can from eating meat. It's also a myth that you need milk for Vitamin D. Vitamin D is in all kinds of foods, including plant foods. The same is true for all the other nutrients meat-eaters often squawk about the moment you start talking about eating vegan. 

But, most importantly, are the cultural metaphors which are literally embedded into our consciousness. Metaphors which carry the subtle impression that meats are superior to plant-based foods. For example, when we talk about books, articles, letters, or presentations, we talk about getting to the "meat" of the topic. When we're reading something that's content-rich, we call it "meaty." 

But, we call an unconscious person living on life support a "vegetable." We call crazy people (or crazy ideas) "nutty" or refer to them as "nutjobs," "fruits" or "fruitcakes." I thought of several others, but the work of scientists like George Lakoff prove how our cultural metaphors color our attitudes towards things, and therefore our actions. Just try talking to any hard-core meat-eaters about being a vegan, and I bet half of them (or more) will bust out with an objection like...

"Where do you get your protein?"

This objection is so stupid, it's almost surreal. Look at this picture of me below and tell me whether it looks like I was getting enough protein. I was benching about 275 lbs, squatting nearly 400lbs, and I weighed only 185 lbs and was at 6% body fat. The truth is, the moment you start taking your diet seriously by reading the ingredients and nutritional information in foods, you realize that there's plenty of protein in plant products and that by combing beans and rice, you get all your essential proteins.

The difference is you don't get all the extra bad cholesterol, excessive fats and other crap that comes from eating animal products. Yes, I know. This podcast is will offend the frail sensitivities of some dogmatic meat-eaters. And honestly, I'm still a long way from going back to being vegan myself. But, that's only because I'm not back in the mental and emotional shape I was once in. If I were, I'd go back to eating vegan in a heartbeat. Regardless of what the pro-meat dogma says, results speak for themselves. 

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